Various

“ You won't break down, and it wouldn't matter in the least if you did. They wouldn't notice anything. And it will be such excellent practice for you to get accustomed to a platform, too. Of course she will play for you, dear Mrs. Flittermouse!
Mrs. Flitt. It will be so good of you, Miss Weaver. And it won't be like playing to a real audience, you know—poor people are so easily pleased, poor dears. ”

“ Something new in Melodrama is wanted, and Melodrama "all of the modern time" is played out, unless a genius can hit on a new sensation. The Adelphi piece, however, has its advantages, and among these its chiefest is, that it necessitates the taking of light refreshment immediately afterwards. ”

“ Perhaps this is a tribute to the representative of the aristocracy at the Criterion, or it indicates with great subtlety that, like Members of Parliament, "Peers are, after all, human—very human," and that one old Peer is uncommonly like another old Peer. Miss Evelyn Millard, as the soprano heroine, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as the base heroine, look handsome, and act excellently. They take the audience with them as far as the audience will go. ”

“ Coming up out of the caves and breathing once more the upper air, we naturally find ourselves in higher society, and are introduced to a handsome old Peer, Lord Netherdale, who has two sons, the half-brothers Royallet, one of whom gaily addresses his respected parent as "The Paladin of Paters," and is not at once locked up in Colney Hatch. The old Peer is as eccentric as he is handsome, and he takes up his residence on the Island of Breke, where "the fruit, the vegetables, the strange sea-creatures" (odd fish?) ”

“ Yes, poor dears—and we mustn't mind being just a little vulgar for once—to cheer them up.
Lady Honor. I have been to the Pavilion and the Tivoli myself, and I heard nothing to object to. I know I was much more amused than I ever am at theatres—they bore me to death. ”

“ It is impossible to count upon renewing such effects as those in Formosa, The Flying Scud, and in the Prodigal Daughter at Drury Lane, wherein the wrong horse was poisoned (in a really dramatic scene) , and Leonard Boyne, riding the winner, cleared the brook, thus causing part-author Druriolanus to clear—any amount of money. There are no two exciting scenes like these in this Adelphi drama. Its comic relief is "poor relief," and would go for nothing at all, were it not in the hands of Mr. Dale, who played and sang so well in Miss Decima at the Criterion, and of the vivacious Miss Clara Jecks. ”

“ Neither will a charming "set," representing the terrace of the "Star and Garter," at Richmond, carry a piece to a successful finale, if the audience has lost all interest in the characters, and does not very much care what becomes of any one of them, male or female. To the play-goer it is not attractive ”

“ Had sat up night and day with it, polishing its rotund periods, till, as Prince Arthur whispers, "Chaplin, gazing upon their surface, saw not himself, but Demosthenes." Fortune favoured him in opportunity. Member for Sunderland had secured privilege of resuming Debate after Questions. Resolved to make long Storey short, he sacrificed his position. Chaplin nimbly stepped in, and reasonably looked forward to crowning epoch in shining Parliamentary career. To open or resume Debate between four and five in afternoon is a prized opportunity; accident had placed it within Chaplin's grasp ”

“ Therefore, 'tis the brother-authors, "hoi Adelphoi," who have blundered. Undoubtedly. An Adelphi audience is not to be satisfied with a one-scene piece, when that scene is without any incident in it worth a melodramatic father's cuss. ”

“ Benches swiftly filled up, and an assembly that vaunts itself most critical audience in the world followed, with rapt attention, the simple sentences of obscure John Redmond, Ex-Committee Clerk—this same audience that had scornfully treated the portentous periods of the Right Hon. Henry Chaplin, sometime Cabinet Minister.
Business done.—Fifth Night's Debate.
Friday.—Prince Arthur, enumerating Statesmen anxious to speak in Debate, doling them out at the rate of one a day, omitted Cousin Cranborne. Doubtless accidental; Noble Lord has his revenge ”

“ G. and J. C.; none so marked as their demeanour throughout debate. The wilder the storm of interruption rages round Joseph, the more urbane he becomes, and the more dangerous. Mr. G., standing on the commanding eminence he has built for himself in the House of Commons, is the sport of most inconsiderable Member. Anyone, with whatever bungling hand, can "draw" him. To-night, whilst Joseph smiled his way through all the spiteful things he had stored up for gratification of old friends, Mr. ”